Karine Ruby: Olympic Snowboarder

Karine Ruby, a former gold medal Olympic snowboarder, died in a climbing accident yesterday. Read more about Karine plus a video of her below.

Karine Ruby, a 1998 Nagano Olympics gold medalist in the giant slalom event, died yesterday after a fall on Mont Blanc. She was in the midst of training to be a mountain guide.

She, along with other climbers, were roped together when they fell into a crack in the glacier on their way down the mountain. An unidentified 38-year-old male also died in the accident. A third member in the group is listed in critical condition.

Our hearts and prayers go out to the Karine Ruby family as they go through this difficult time.

Read a biography of Karine Ruby below.

Karine Ruby Biography

As a biography, Karine Ruby was born on January 4, 1978. At the time of her death (May 29, 2009), she was 31 years old. Karine hailed from France and represented her country in the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics, where she won the gold medal in the giant slalom event. In 2002, she won a silver medal in the parallel giant slalom event in the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.

She was a world champion snowboarder six times over and amassed 65 World Cup wins. After her appearance in the 2006 Turin Olympics, she retired from snowboarding. At the time of her death, she was working on becoming a mountain guide and was a few weeks short of completing her training.

See a video of Karine Ruby below.

Karine Ruby Video

This entry was posted on May 30, 2009 at 11:53 am and is filed under Sports Obituaries. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.